Tuesday 9 June 2020

Dover-Calais, the problems mount

Well, just yesterday morning I said that we hadn't heard anything much about Dover and within minutes (53 to be precise) Peter Foster at the FT is tweeting a link to an article about the "Dover-Calais post-Brexit trade plagued by uncertainty."  He says six months before new rules begin there is no clarity on plans to manage massive cargo traffic, and it talks about the problems the government faces on the main artery for Britain's trade links with Europe.

Here is the tweet:

The key points coming from the thread for me are these:

Fistly, the government intended to publish a plan "Border Operating Model" which keeps being delayed so the port authorities actually have no idea what they're supposed to be doing in January! I understand this plan is expected some time in June - six months before it needs to be up and running.

Secondly, there is no chance of building any facilities at Dover, there is no space and a telling point in the article is the port manager saying Dover is a gateway, not a depot and can only fit in ten trucks for customs checking.  Therefore everything will have to be constructed elsewhere and as far as I've read there isn't even a planning application yet!!

Thirdly, most imported freight from non-EU countries comes in unaccompanied and can go into bonded warehousing to wait for days for import checking and so on. Dover is all Ro-Ro traffic, trucks with drivers who can wait for a few hours but not days or weeks.

The French have already developed a system which will work on the ferries as they cross the Channel. Screens will show which trucks can drive straight-off the ferry in Calais (Green) and which trucks will need to go for checks (Orange). This is apparently already up and running and the freight companies are pressing for the UK to buy a licence to run the same system on traffic in the other direction - but the government has refused.

Foster says John Keefe of Eurotunnel owner GetlinkGroup has told him the big issue is really one of business preparedness - "can the 150,000 UK companies that have had almost 'zero' paperwork shift overnight to this new system (which hasn't yet been published!) It's a huge ask."

Richard Burnett of the RHA has written to Penny Mordaunt at the Foreign Office asking for the transition to be delayed but was told no - businesses have to prepare. The problem is they don't know what for and the government can't tell them!

It is pure insanity.

This came as I also noted a Twitter thread for Michael M - a former logistics/freight forwarder explaining that the warnings of food shortages in January are not scaremongering but entirely possible and certain if we leave without a trade deal.
Michael talks about the complexity of customs forms and declarations and how even if we manage to recruit and train 50,000 'form-fillers' in time (a very big IF) they will be inexperienced and he points to the 20 per cent error rate in customs documentation on the long-standing EU-Swiss border. What hope is there for a smooth transition?

Coupled with that the UK is moving from the old CHIEF (Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight) system for customs to a new one called CDS (Customs Declaration Service) in the new year as well!!

And finally, he points out the UK has deliberately opted out of being part of the same zone as the EU and EFTA and hence each consignment will need a safety/security declaration to be made by the carrier as well as a customs declaration by the consignor. This apparently amounts to tens or hundreds per load on the 12,000 loads cross crossing channel daily.  Good luck with that.

This is a mess four years in the making. There will have to be a U-turn at some point, no government of sentient human beings (I know, I know) would risk it. Or would they?
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